COLUMBIA -- Missouri has several distinct regions that offer their own special qualities, from large metropolitan areas to rugged Ozark hills to gently rolling bluegrass land to Delta lowlands.

A just-published statistical study of the state highlights numerous other differences as well, from personal income to infant mortality to family dependency on governmental transfer payments.

The study, "Statistical Abstract of Missouri," is a biennial project of faculty and research staff at the College of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The 256-page abstract, similar but smaller than the one published for the entire country by the U.S. Department of Commerce, contains facts on subjects from unemployment rates to tax payments.

The abstract tells Missourians where they should reside if they want to earn higher salaries than the state average, where they should raise children if they want to lower the odds of infant mortality, and where they should live if they are interested in receiving the highest retirement and welfare payments.

For example, Missourians who are interested in earning higher incomes will find they have a choice of several regions, including St. Louis County where residents enjoy the largest per-capita annual income of $29,633. To take advantage of the second-highest per-capita income, Missourians should move to the opposite side of the state and settle in Platte County on the northern edge of Kansas City. Platte County enjoy a per-capita yearly income of $23,623.

Despite the fact it is losing residents at a faster rate than any jurisdiction in the state, the city of St. Louis enjoyed the third-highest per-capita income total: $22,047, while Jackson County ranks fourth with $21,937 annually. Other areas to seek out for higher incomes include another neighboring Kansas City county, Clay, where the per-capita income is $21,314; St. Charles County, next to St. Louis, $20,870; and perhaps the most unusual of all, Atchison County, in the very northwestern tip of the state, $19,587.

Two counties in the central part of the state also offer higher-than-average income opportunities: Cole (the state's capital): $20,051 and Boone (MU campus): $19,853. Two other counties harboring regional universities also offer high-income opportunities: Green (Springfield): $19,882 and Cape Girardeau: $19,111.

If Missourians want to avoid higher incomes, the statistical abstract points to several counties where it is possible, with the lowest per-capita income totals belonging to three counties in the Ozark foothills -- Wayne, $11,526; Ripley, $11,580; Shannon, $11,665 -- and Douglas County, in the south-central part of the state, which has an only slightly higher total of $11,833.

As residents of the state's poorest county in terms of per-capita income, Wayne countians earn 61 percent less than do their cousins in St. Louis County.

For Missourians who are experiencing trouble finding employment, four counties offer the lowest jobless rates: Boone, with a 1995 average of only 2.3 percent; Nodaway (site of Northwest Missouri State University at Maryville), 2.4 percent; Cole, 2.8 percent; and Platte, 2.9 percent.

The jobless should avoid several counties in the lower quadrants of the state, particularly Wayne County, where 1995's average unemployment rate was 15.5 percent; Wright County, 10.8 percent; Stone County, 9.5 percent; Ripley County, 9.1 percent; and Washington County, 9 percent.

Although thinly populated Wayne County has a labor force of only 3,660, it has consistently recorded jobless rates above 10 percent. In 1993 it had a record-high 20.8 percent unemployment level.

Adjoining areas -- St. Louis city and St. Charles County -- hold the high and low records for per-capita government payments that include welfare, disability and unemployment checks. Residents of St. Louis receive so-called transfer payments that annually average $5,676 per person, while in St. Charles County the state's lowest transfer average is $2,103.

Closely following St. Louis in the highest transfer income category are the counties of Saline, $5,535; Vernon, $5,110; and Butler, $5,001. Counties with the lowest transfer incomes, following St. Charles, are two other suburban counties: Jefferson, $2,443, and Clay, $2,493. Other low-transfer areas include Boon, $2,545, and Christian, $2,574.

If you want to have children, you may want to consider having them born in one of 11 counties in the state that last year had zero rates for infant-maternal deaths. The counties, all located in outstate and with small populations, recorded no perinatal, infant, fetal, neonatal, post-neonatal or maternal deaths in the most-recent 12-month period. The 11 no-fatality counties are Benton, Bollinger, DeKalb, Harrison, Iron, Lewis, Ozark, Putnam, Ralls, St. Clair and Shelby.

On the other hand, families expecting children may want to avoid Knox County in the far northwest region of the state, which has the highest death-rate average, reaching 43.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.